my head emptied
as though bathwater down a drain, and i became simpler:
than the children kicking and screaming and skinning their knees on mulch,
than the cars coming and going and crashing and catching dead bugs in their killer windshields.

suddenly, ripples were spreading gently through the sky
like it was a body of water, being stirred to life by the clouds
like they were the fluffy fingers of a kid poking at his fish bowl,
and i started wondering what a sky even was
and if it could be the ground
if i sought to somehow stand on it.

i sat in the grass, plucked out its longest blades
like i was a brush tearing hair from the scalp of the earth,
started weaving little green bracelets, like I'd done as a boy,
and i did it until the sun had started to go down,
unable to connect the sky’s slow setting
to a passing of time.